Where dreams come true: a fantasia on the theme of a liberal pope - October 2015 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - October 4th, 2015

At first, I admit, I was angered by the distress that Pope Francis, the Richard Dawkins of Catholicism, had caused during this week’s capricious state visit to Disneyland, California. Though I have many religious friends, had Pope Francis been one of them, his obtuse behaviour in Disneyland would have tested the limits of our relationship.…

Jezza the jester? He’s here to satirise politics as we know it - September 2015 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - September 20th, 2015

As you can imagine, it is a constant source of irritation to me that I am frequently ridiculed in academic circles for my supposed over-reliance on cultural comparisons drawn from the world of the Native American shaman clown. And yet, in the light of the ascension of Jeremy Corbyn, I find myself taking familiar soundings…

It’s not easy getting laughs out of the migrant crisis - September 2015 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - September 13th, 2015

Refugees cross the Serbian-Hungarian border last week. Photograph: Matthias Schrader/AP On Monday, David Cameron revealed that a Welsh Isis recruit had been killed in Syria by an unmanned drone, or defence secretary Michael Fallon, as the unmanned drone is better known. The Sun responded with characteristic restraint, depicting the Welsh terrorist’s head in cross hairs,…

Jeremy Corbyn and I are the new Christs - September 2015 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - September 6th, 2015

Apparently, the Labour party leadership contest frontrunner, Jeremy Corbyn, wants to dredge the decomposing corpse of Osama bin Laden from the seabed and then marry it. And he wants to live with the dead body of Bin Laden in Islington, as if it were his gay-zombie husband, in a sick leftwing pantomime of the heterosexual…

Time to embrace the horrors of your Spotify playlist data - August 2015 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 30th, 2015

As Observer-reading ABC1 cultural consumers, our carefully cultivated tastes in film, in literature and in oak-aged cheeses are the exquisite hand-crafted carnival masks that we wear as armour in the awkward middle-class dinner party of life. But the tragic consequences of last week’s Spotify data hack continue to unravel. And we wonder privately what could…

Can we be absolutely certain Iain Duncan Smith is real? - August 2015 The Observer - By Stewart Lee - August 23rd, 2015

Hair, teeth and ears all present and correct: is Iain Duncan Smith too good to be true? Photograph: ITV/REX Shutterstock Last week, the Department for Work and Pensions tsar, Iain Duncan Smith, was revealed to have fabricated a pamphlet featuring two entirely fictitious former benefit claimants, using Conservative party stationery cupboard scissors and an adhesive…